


did you miss me (while you were looking for yourself)

by bat206



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, I really don't know what to tag lol, Lena Luthor Gets Therapy, Lena Luthor Needs a Hug, Tags Are Hard, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:26:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24722275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bat206/pseuds/bat206
Summary: “Tell me, Lena. Why are you here?”“I don’t want to be here.”“And that’s okay. But, why are you here?”“I don’t have to answer your questions.”“You’re right, you don’t. You could easily get up from that chair, go over to that door, and walk right through it. You’d never have to see my face again. But you’re not. You’re still sitting here, and you’re still listening to me, so deep down, you know you want to stay. So tell me, why are you here?”ORA study has shown that a person can fall in love three times in their lifetime. Kara was Lena’s third.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 67





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first fic, so I'm just figuring this out as I go. I hope you like it! :)
> 
> Title is from "Drops of Jupiter" by Train.

Lena shifted on the all too squishy couch she was seated on. Nowhere felt comfortable. Not with her legs crossed, not with them tucked underneath her. She even tried resting her legs on the small coffee table in front of her, but quickly deemed that impolite of her. Settling on plainly crossing one ankle over the other, Lena brought her gaze up to the woman on the other side of the coffee table. Madeline Zimmerman was her name. She was an older woman, though late-fifties at most. She wore a brightly colored blouse (that was almost too obnoxious for Lena to look at this early in the morning) and a pair of light gray slacks. A figure eight scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck. Her dark brown hair was pulled back into a bun. She was put together.

Lena, on the other hand, was not. At least, in her own eyes. It was seven a.m. on a Thursday morning. Normally on at seven a.m. on a Thursday morning, Lena would’ve already been an hour into her work day. There would be a cup of half-finished coffee sitting on a coaster on her desk and a stack of paperwork for her to complete in front of her. But this wasn’t a normal seven a.m. on a Thursday morning.

Today was Lena’s first day of therapy. 

Her first day in years. Lena hadn’t stepped foot in a therapist’s office since she was ten years old. Apparently when your father dies, Mount Helena Boarding School presents you with mandatory weekly sessions with the school counselor. Who would’ve thought? 

Lena hadn’t wanted to go. She refused, actually. But Jess thought she should, as did J’onn and Alex. However, the phone call from Eliza was the tipping point. The sound of Eliza’s raspy voice, thick with unshed tears, on the other line of the phone was all it took for Lena to do a complete 180. She went and talked to Kelly the next day, and she referred her to one of her colleagues.

That was last week. 

Now it’s seven a.m. on a Thursday morning and Lena is sitting on an all too squishy couch with no idea how to get comfortable. 

“Good morning, Lena. Is it okay if I call you that?”

Lena nodded at Mrs. Zimmerman. “Sure.”

“Tell me, Lena. Why are you here?” Mrs. Zimmerman shifts this time. She clicks the button on her pen allowing the nib to pop out. Flipping through her notebook and settling on a clean page, she set her eyes on Lena.

It only made Lena more uncomfortable.

“I don’t want to be here,” she answered honestly.

“And that’s okay. But, _ why _ are you here?”

“I don’t have to answer your questions.”

Mrs. Zimmerman smiles tightly. “You’re right, you don’t. You could easily get up from that chair, go over to that door, and walk right through it. You’d never have to see my face again. But you’re not. You’re still sitting here, and you’re still listening to me, so deep down, you know you want to stay. So tell me, why are you here?”

“I’m sad.” 

As soon as the words left her mouth, Lena cringed at how juvenile they sounded. Truthfully sitting across from a therapist made her feel like a child again. She felt forced into this situation. She felt like that then, too. But Eliza wanted her to do this, so she’ll be damned if she doesn’t at least give it a shot.

“Why are you sad?”

Lena had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “You know why I’m…  _ upset _ .” There. Upset. That’s a better word. 

“Yes, I know why Kelly Olsen called me. She told me about your girlfriend’s passing. But I’d like to hear why you are here from your own mouth. You’re sad, yes. Why?”

After flitting her eyes around the room for a moment and finding no tell-tale signs of a listening device or hidden camera, Lena sighs. “I’m never going to love again.”

Mrs. Zimmerman nods her head as a way telling Lena to continue.

“I loved Kara. But now she’s gone. I’m never going to love again,” Lena repeats. 

God, she could’ve died then and there on that all too squishy couch. The word vomit spilling from her mouth reminded her of her dork of a girlfriend. She wondered if Kara felt like this everytime she spit out random nonsense like Lena just had. Then Lena remembered that Kara didn’t care what other people thought of her.

Lena does.

That’s why seeing Mrs. Zimmerman continuously writing in her notebook on a page that’s not clean anymore scares her. Lena’s only said like six words since she walked in. What could she be writing about?

“What are you writing?” Lena asks, her insecurities getting the best of her. 

“Just my lunch order so my assistant knows what to get me.” Mrs. Zimmerman says with a short chuckle. She flips her notebook around so Lena can see, and sure enough, a burrito bowl from Chipotle and a Coke in chicken scratch handwriting is staring back at her.

For some reason, at this, Lena feels herself growing angry at the woman. “Do you even care about what I’m saying? My fucking girlfriend just died and you’re leaving notes for your PA?”

“Why do you care if I’m listening or not? Is there something you want me to hear?”

_ Shit _ . 

That was good.

Mrs. Zimmerman must’ve recognized Lena’s realization and decided that a smirk would be the best thing to add next. 

“Lena, why do you think you’ll never love again. I’m sure you have a lot of love to give,” she says after a moment or two of just the clock on the wall ticking.

“No, you don’t understand. Kara was my last. I’ll never love again.”

Mrs. Zimmerman scrunches her eyebrows in confusion. Or was it intrigue? Either way, Lena’s statement had caught her off guard. 

“What do you mean?” She flips to a new page.

“The Three Loves Theory. It’s the work of Helen Fisher. She states that-”

“...There are three loves. Lust, Passion, and Commitment. I’m aware of this theory. How does this apply to your life, Lena?”

Intrigue. It was definitely intrigue.

“Veronica was my Lust. Andrea was my Passion. Kara is my…  _ was _ my commitment.”

It’s cruel how muscle memory worked. The shift of referring to someone you’re so used to seeing every second of every day in the past tense is hard. Worse than hard. It’s… it’s…  _ tiring _ . It’s hard, and it’s tiring, and it’s cruel. 

“Tell me about Veronica.”

“I thought we were here about Kara.”

“You were the one who brought up Fisher’s theory,” Mrs. Zimmerman deadpans. In some weird way, she reminds Lena of Cat Grant. Or, at least, the way Kara had viewed the media mogul. Lena hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Cat herself until Kara’s funeral, and even then, she couldn’t see straight from all of the tears blurring her vision. 

Lena’s eyes meet Mrs. Zimmerman’s and they lock in some sort of staring contest. It’s an unspoken competition. On any normal seven a.m. on a Thursday morning, Lena wouldn’t even think about blinking first. That would mean being defeated. It would show weakness. 

Lena blinks.

“I met Veronica in boarding school,” she begins. “We became fast friends, and one thing led to another…”

“How are you so sure that this Veronica was your Lust love?” Mrs. Zimmerman urges. 

“For starters, we had sex at what seemed like every minute of every hour. I didn’t quite realize it then, but we never really went out on dates. We would alternate whose room we would meet at to just hook up. There was love there. A love for feeling loved. We were both missing a strong familial bond when we met, so we fell in love with the prospect of having someone to love.” 

Lena focuses her vision back on Mrs. Zimmerman. Sometime during her rambling mess, she zeroed in on a plant Mrs. Zimmerman had on a table behind her. It was a beautiful deep purple in color, surrounded by green petals. An African violet, perhaps?

“Sorry, that was probably very confusing.”

“No, no, I understand.” Mrs. Zimmerman smiles, and for the first time in the twenty-four and a half minutes (Lena had been keeping track) of her sitting on that all too squishy couch, Lena feels at ease.

“Eventually Veronica and I went our separate ways because she got tied in with the wrong people. I didn’t want that for my life, so I focused on my studies. It was about three months after Veronica and I had split that I began to develop feelings for Andrea.”

Before Lena could even catch herself, she realized that she had openly revealed information about herself without being pushed or forced. It felt nice. Comfortable.

“Andrea is your Passion, correct?”

“Yes. We had actually been friends for a while before we started dating. God, we were probably fifteen or sixteen when we met. She and I-”

The timer goes off.

The timer that Mrs. Zimmerman had set for twenty-five minutes before they started talking. 

The timer that Lena wishes she could crush right now.

“Looks like our time is up. It was nice talking to you today, Lena.” Mrs. Zimmerman stands and extends her hand forward for Lena to shake. Lena just stares at it in confusion.

“But, I haven’t told you about Andrea yet,” she sputters, still sitting on the couch, suddenly finding herself the most uncomfortable she had been all morning.

“You’ll just have to schedule another appointment with Janice.” She pulls her hand back, knowing well Lena wouldn’t shake it.

Lena huffs a breath and rises from the all too squishy couch. She grabs her purse from the floor by her feet and waltzes right by Mrs. Zimmerman to the door. She grasps the handle, fully intending to slam it behind her, but she freezes before she can even turn it. 

She thinks about how immature she’s acting.

She thinks about how Eliza will react when she calls her later today to ask Lena about her appointment.

She thinks about how Kara would tell her gently that she should go back.

“When are you free next?”

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Lena scheduled her next appointment for the following Thursday morning. Her phone call with Eliza the night of her first meeting with Mrs. Zimmerman went well enough. Eliza was thrilled that Lena decided to set up a date for another appointment, as Lena expected. The rest of her week went by slowly. Everything seemed to be going by slowly ever since Kara’s death. Time. Traffic. The damned laundry machine. 

Time began to slow down when Lena first heard the news about Kara. She was sitting behind her desk at L-Corp, reviewing the final preparations for a charity gala she was hosting. It was 3:37 p.m. when Alex called her. By 3:38 she was already down in the lobby pushing by anyone who got in her way.

It was 3:51 when Hector, her driver, made it to the DEO; 3:53 by the time Lena got by security, and 3:56 when Lena first layed her eyes on Kara. 

Kara, who was battered and bruised. Kara, who was barely hanging on. Kara, _her_ Kara.

Lena doesn’t remember much after she first saw Kara. She blocked it out of her mind. Seeing Kara so hurt, and weak, and vulnerable. Lena’s heart fractured that day and it still hasn’t pieced itself back together. She doesn’t know if it ever will.

Saturday brought something unexpected to Lena’s weekly routine. She had gotten a call from Cat Grant. Cat told Lena that she’d like to have dinner with her that evening so they could get to know each other. After shaking off the initial shock that the Queen of all Media wanted to get to know _her_ , Lena accepted the invitation. 

It would be good for her, Lena thought. Breaking away from her usual pattern would bring only good things. Lena hoped Mrs. Zimmerman would agree.

The restaurant Cat selected for them to dine at was nothing short of elegant, but who would expect any less of Cat Grant? It was called _La Cabane de l'Ouest_. Lena had never been there before, much to Cat’s surprise. 

“I’d thought you, of anyone, would know of this place,” Cat had said once they both placed their orders and Lena had let it slip that she hadn’t even heard of it until today.

Lena just nodded her head, taking a sip of her Pinot noir. 

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Lena began, placing her glass down on the table, “why do _you_ want to get to know _me_ better?”

If she was being honest with herself, wanting the answer to that question had been one of the three reasons why Lena really agreed to meet; the other two being that she thought a break in her normal routine would actually be beneficial, and she was getting extremely tired of eating takeout for dinner.

“You are a remarkable woman, Lena Luthor, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either a fool or someone who’s reflecting your family’s wrongdoings onto you. I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t want to meet you before I even met Kara.”

Lena smiled slightly at the mention of her girlfriend’s name. She wondered that if Kara were to still be here, would she have gone with Lena to meet Cat? Lena didn’t know. But she knew that Kara would be off the walls excited about it, nonetheless.

“How have you been handling… everything?” Cat asked, her tone soft. 

When Lena’s eyes met Cat’s she was expecting sympathy or pity, hell, even curiosity. All she saw, however, was sincerity. Cat truly cared about Lena and how she felt.

That was new.

Lena took in a breath. Answering that question wasn’t easy. Therapy with Mrs. Zimmerman was new. There was still a three week gap in between Kara’s death and her first session where Lena was left alone to drown in her grief. 

“I, um, I started seeing a therapist. Last week. She’s alright,” Lena answered. 

“And before that?”

“I threw myself into my work. It probably wasn’t the healthiest decision.”

She just knew Cat would chastise her for doing something so stupid. Kara had told her about all the times Cat reprimanded her for slipping up on the tiniest of things. Cat was a perfectionist, so it was understandable that she’d want her employees to have all their I’s dotted and their T’s crossed. That still doesn’t excuse the older woman’s attitude towards Kara for forgetting to lower her desk chair before she sat in it, but maybe Lena was just biased.

Cat took a sip of her own drink. “How is Director Danvers? I've tried calling her, but she hasn’t been answering my calls.”

If a mirror was placed in front of Lena, she’s sure her face would resemble that of a fish. Or a clown, due to how red she was from her nerves. Maybe a clownfish? Cat was a perfectionist, and that gave Lena the misconception that she would have the perfect solution for sorrow. Lena was wrong.

That was _also_ new.

It didn’t matter what Lena thought anymore, though. She was just grateful that the attention was off of her.

“Alex, she’s been taking this pretty hard. She doesn’t really talk to anyone these days, except for her girlfriend. It took her almost two weeks for her to talk to me.”

“Kara and her sister were close. I’m not surprised she has tried to close herself off.”

Lena hummed in response. She honestly wished Cat would stop talking about Kara. Sure, Kara was the catalyst for her and Cat meeting, but her being gone was still so new. It was a fresh wound that would never really heal. It would leave a deep, deep scar.

Lena was grateful that their dinner went by quickly after they both received their dishes. Cat paid for the meal, having quickly shut Lena down after she offered. One of Cat’s drivers took Lena back to her penthouse in the city, and that was that. Cat and Lena never really got to know one another, but the dinner did open the window for more opportunities to do so.

After what seemed like ages, Thursday finally came around and Lena could see Mrs. Zimmerman again. When her assistant called her back, Lena was practically buzzing with anticipation. She so badly wanted to finish telling Mrs. Zimmerman about Andrea. She was the only person Lena could really talk to about the Three Loves Theory. She understood. 

Lena sat on the all too squishy couch again, finding it more soothing than annoying this time around.

“It’s nice to see you back Lena,” Mrs. Zimmerman smiles. “You had me a little worried last time. You looked like you were about to leave and never return.”

“I really thought I was going to. But then I thought about what Kara would’ve told me, and I decided to give this therapy thing another shot.”

Mrs. Zimmerman pulls out her notebook and pen again. “What do you think Kara would’ve told you?”

“Oh?” That question caught Lena off guard. “I assumed you would want me to jump right back in with Andrea.”

“Oh, dear, we don’t make assumptions here,” Mrs. Zimmerman says. “You can talk about anything you want to talk about. Work troubles, family troubles, car troubles,” she adds that last bit with a laugh.

Lena crosses her legs, then uncrosses them. She sighs out of subtle frustration, settling again for one ankle over the other. “I’ll just answer your question.”

Mrs. Zimmerman nods and clicks open her pen.

“I’m a very reserved person. It wasn’t easy letting Kara in, so you can imagine how difficult it was for me to actually force myself to talk to you.”

Lena shifts again, pushing herself further onto the couch so she can rest her back on the back cushions. 

“When I first came to National City from Metropolis, I promised myself I would never love again. I was betrayed time and time again by my family and those who I thought were my friends. I thought I wasn’t capable of love or being loved. Then, I met Kara. Kara was different.”

Lena closes her eyes for a minute, remembering the day she first met Kara. She was still getting everything sorted out with renaming Luthor Corp, then in waltzes Clark Kent along with the most beautiful woman Lena had been fortunate enough to lay her eyes on.

“Sometimes, if I’m relaxed enough,” Lena begins with her eyes still shut, “I can still faintly remember the smell of the perfume she was wearing that day. Lavender.”

Lena can tell that a smile has made its way across her face. She lets the memory simmer for a moment, basking in the warmth that encased her body at the thought of it.

Lena opens her now sensitive eyes and lets them adjust to the fluorescent lights in the room.

“Kara chipped away at my armor with her warmth and her earnestness. She convinced me to trust in people again, to trust in friendships. I confided in her that everyone in my past had betrayed me, and she promised me that she was never going anywhere. In Kara, I had someone who would stand up for me, always. She quickly became my moral compass.”

A knot was beginning to well in Lena’s throat. Her vision blurs as tears threaten to fall. Lena clamps her eyes closed and swallows thickly. She felt like a balloon that kept getting filled up, just barely holding itself together. 

“She would always give me little words of encouragement, even before we started dating. She even got me a jar of a year’s worth of motivational quotes for my birthday one year.” A mix between a laugh and a sob escapes Lena at that. “I still read a couple every once in a while, when I need a pick-me-up. Most times, though, I can just imagine what she’d tell me.”

Tears now freely flowed down Lena’s face. Her cheeks were now puffy and red. Lena stills as memory after memory flashes through her mind in short bursts. It was almost like a movie, how each memory seemed to capture a single moment in time. The way the skin underneath Kara’s eyes crinkled whenever she smiled. The way it made Lena’s heart flutter whenever Kara told her that she loved her. The way Kara had gently cupped Lena’s cheeks in her hands right before their lips softly met for the first time. The first of hundreds, thousands of kisses they would share over the course of their three years together.

“Kara would want me to get better,” Lena hiccups through the tears. “So that's what I'm going to do."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know how long this thing is going to be lol. I originally was planning on three chapters, but it's definitely going to be over that amount. I'm not particularly happy with this part (I feel like it was sort of rushed), but oh well. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know if I should continue this or not. :)


End file.
